


Surprises in Unexpected Places

by Nixie_DeAngel



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, But really the other characters are only mentioned, Eddie Lives, Fluff, M/M, Minor Caitlin Snow/Ronnie Raymond, Minor Eddie Thawne/Iris West, Original Minor Characters - Freeform, Ronnie Lives, mention of spiders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-12 14:40:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12961563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nixie_DeAngel/pseuds/Nixie_DeAngel
Summary: And after almost six months, Barry had felt like he was getting to a good place, not only with healing his relationships with Iris and Eddie, with Caitlin and Ronnie, but also with some of the things he’d been through, things he’d been manipulated into doing. Finally feeling like he was taking the correct steps in getting himself, his life in order when Harrison Wells, no Barry amended once again, Eobard Thawne’s attorney cornered him at work dropping a bomb on him.Thawne had named him his sole heir to his fortune. He’d left him not only everything in his personal life, such as his monstrous glass house but the older man had also left him Star Labs.Or, Barry doesn't expect his brand new living arrangements to come with so many surprises in such a short amount of time.





	Surprises in Unexpected Places

**Author's Note:**

  * For [letmetellyouthatiloveyou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/letmetellyouthatiloveyou/gifts).



> The Prompt Was: New Neighbor AU: Barry just moved in to a new apartment and doesn't really know anyone, but there's a giant spider in his kitchen and he needs someone (new neighbor Len) to kill it for him, and will pay in food.
> 
> So this doesn't entirely follow the prompt exactly and its basically an AU after Season 1.....including Ronnie and Eddie living, I still hope you like it!!

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Dropping the last box onto the floor, Barry straightened up and slowly turned in a circle as he took in his brand new apartment. The loft certainly was nice, spacious with incredible views out of the ceiling high windows and it was utterly bare of looking like anything other than a giant mess. Taking a deep breath, Barry let his shoulders drop as he let his eyes close for a long moment.

“Okay then,” he breathed out as he blinked his eyes open and pulled off his shirt, tossing it over the counter as he walked over to it. Pulling his phone out of his pocket he swiped his fingers across it and just a few seconds later music began playing as he leaned it up against the box marked kitchen stuff.

“Let’s do this,” Barry hummed along to the music as he let his mind wander back over the past year as he moved at normal speed and began unpacking the half dozen or so boxes that littered his new living room floor.

 

 

After Wells – _no after Eobard Thawne_ – and the black hole, after almost losing Ronnie and Eddie to Thawne’s game, Barry had decided it was time to move on, to grow up and stop hoping for things that were never going to happen.

(Like Iris realizing she loved him the way he wanted her too.)

So Barry had done everything he could to pull himself back from having Iris is, to try and do everything short of moving completely out of Central City. He’d moved out of Joe’s into a tiny studio, stopped spending so much time with her, which was easy since Iris spent all of her time with Eddie as he recovered at Central General and then once he’d been released their apartment.

Barry had also deiced to begin seeing a therapist again, trying to work through everything that he’d been through…well everything he could considering his therapist had no idea who he really was and the things he’d really been through, but he was doing his best coming up with abridge versions, changing certain things without giving anything away.

And after almost six months, Barry had felt like he was getting to a good place, not only with healing his relationships with Iris and Eddie, with Caitlin and Ronnie, but also with some of the things he’d been through, things he’d been manipulated into doing. Finally feeling like he was taking the correct steps in getting himself, his life in order when Harrison Wells, no Barry amended once again, Eobard Thawne’s attorney cornered him at work dropping a bomb on him.

Thawne had named him his sole heir to his fortune. He’d left him not only everything in his personal life, such as his monstrous glass house but the older man had also left him Star Labs.

 

After the surprisingly short court battle and taking control of “Harrison Wells” finances and owner ship of Star Labs, Barry immediately got to work. First by making Cisco and Caitlin co-owners with him, and drawing up a plan in getting the labs back up and semi functioning so that they could afford keeping the lights on, and secretly the Flash in business.

The second thing Barry had done was used the video tape that Thawne had left and gotten the process started on getting his father out of prison. And after district attorney Cecile Horton had seen it, she’d been nearly unstoppable in seeing justice be done and gotten Henry out as quickly as possible.

The third thing he’d done after all that, was to sell Thawne’s old home, break his lease and move in somewhere he could see himself grow more, somewhere he could just maybe find someone and build a life with.

 

 

Pausing in his unpacking, Barry took a moment to come back to the present as he flicked his gaze around the unpacked living before bobbing his head a few times as he made his way over to the kitchen and let himself lean back against the island, one of three features that had truly sold him his new home, and let his body relax for a few long moments.

Closing his eyes, Barry let himself be swept up in the slow, soft crooning voice Ella Fitzgerald, a favorite of his mother’s, when he felt something fuzzy brush against his fingers. Furrowing brow, Barry turned to look down before promptly letting out a shrill scream as he jumped back and zipped to the other side of the living room. Breathing heavily, he felt his eyes widen slightly as he stared over at the large brownish looking spider crawling across the marbled countertop of his island.

“How in the hell did you get into here?” Barry murmured quietly to himself as he squinted at what looked to be a tarantula crawling up first his phone and then atop the still unopened kitchen box sitting on the island. Stepping closer after another moment, Barry felt a little silly, letting himself get his worked up a spider when he felt himself jump at the sudden banging on his front door.

Frowning as he flicked his gaze towards the spider, which seemed content to sit atop the box, and the front door, Barry zipped over before whoever it was could do another round “knocking”. Taking just a second, he smoothed his left hand over his hair as he took a breath and reached out with his right to open his door.

Barry paused mid attempt to smile as he came face to face with none other than a concerned looking Leonard Snart, his left arm raised as if he was about to beat it against Barry’s front door once more. He was dressed in worn but a soft looking grey sweater and almost threadbare blue sleeping pants.

Both men froze as they stared at one another, their eyes going comically wide as they took one another in slowly.

“ _Cold_?” “ _Scarlet_?”

They both murmured at once in confusion as Cold slowly lowered his arm as he shuffled back half a step, tilting his chin up as his eyes narrowed at the hero, while Barry himself also took a step back as his face morphed into something stern, though it probably didn’t look like it to Snart.

They eyed one another for a long moment, before Snart tilted his head to the side, gaze sweeping over Barry, before darting past him, as if looking for another person. He drew back shortly as he leveled Barry with a hard look as he spoke sharply, “Heard someone scream,” as he slipped passed Barry into the younger man’s apartment. He turned his head this way and that but came up empty on finding another person.

Blinking rapidly for a moment, Barry opened and shut his mouth a few times before just barely keeping himself from squealing in delight as he whirled around, shutting his door as he did, to grin brightly. Barry though wouldn’t be surprised if it came across more smugly than anything else as he slipped his hands into his back pockets, rocking back on his heels.

It didn’t take long for Snart to notice either as the man crossed his arms over his chest, jutting his chin out and eyes narrowing as if to challenge Barry as he took in the other man’s smug looking smile. “What?” He bit out icily.

“Knew you had good in you,” Barry quipped before letting out a little giggle as Snart grimaced. “Coming to make sure no one was getting hurt,” he grinned as waggled his finger at Cold.

Cold looked like he wanted to argue, but he couldn’t really refute Barry’s claim, as he’d all but admitted to coming over for that exact reason. Instead, Cold let out a light huff as he flicked his eyes around again, before they zeroed in on the kitchen. More specially, they zeroed in on the tarantula still atop the box. “I see Prince Cupcake has found their way out of their cage again,” he rumbled before sighing as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell.

Barry frowned as he watched the man’s fingers fly across the screen before he pocketed the cell back into his pants again as he found himself speaking, “Prince Cupcake?” He watched as Snart nodded at the spider.

“The Twins normally let Prince out when their aunt’s boyfriend is over, hoping to terrify him,” Snart answered after a moment. “Occasionally, Prince Cupcake likes sneaks out on their own though, thinks the entire building is their cage.”

“Oh,” Barry nodded as if it all made since, which it probably would when Barry was currently in one of the most bizarre situations of his life. Swallowing, he glanced down and realized he was still shirtless. Zipping over and into his shirt before flashing back to where he’d been standing, Barry fought to keep his face neutral as they waited in awkward silence.

(Which after the last year and a half, this really shouldn’t be THAT bizarre, but well….it was.)

They stood there for a few moments, eyeing one another before there were two short rapid fire knocks on the door, one right after the other. Snart easily moved over to open the door, a small smile on his face as he stepped back and let in two small children. Barry thought they didn’t look much older than ten or so.

“Mister Lenny!” They cried together as they stumbled in, shoving at one another as if to be first into Barry’s apartment. The one with bright purple glasses seemed to come out the winner as when they elbowed the other when they lifted their arms to adjust their glasses. “You found Prince Cupcake,” They cried out happily, pausing just short of Cold’s personal space, seeming to catch themselves at the last second.

“Kian, Maia,” Cold nodded at both of them as he shut the door once again with his right, while he used his left arm to point over at Barry, causing both children to smile brightly and wave for a few seconds at him. “Actually Barry found Prince.”

Giving an awkward wave, Barry pointed over at the spider, Prince Cupcake, was still at. Both kids let out cheerful screams as they raced over and climbed up onto the bar stools that Caitlin and Ronnie had gifted him as a house warming gift and began to shuffle Prince Cupcake into a carrier that the twin who hadn’t spoken had had been carrying.

Snart moved over to stand near Barry as they watched the kids together slowly trying to coax Prince Cupcake into their carrier without rushing the spider.

Clearing his throat, Barry shifted his weight, angling his body more towards Snart before speaking softly. “You do this often?” Barry found himself asking, a small bemused smile playing at his lips as glanced over at the kids before flicking his gaze back over to the other.

Snart tilted his head towards the Speedster; his face hardening from the soft look when he’d been looking at the kids. “Usually about once or twice a month,” he answered after a long moment, seeming to come to some sort of conclusion, “So neighbors?”

Barry found himself nodding as he brought his arms up to wrap around himself as he tilted his head just enough to glance over at the man, taking in the softness of his appearance, noting things he’d never really let himself before about the other man. The way the other man’s eyes crinkled at the corners; the faint scruff along the man’s sharp cheekbones; the lines around the other man’s mouth. The man’s long, thin fingers, the pinky being the only one to be adorned by a silver ring. The way Cold’s sweater stretched across shoulder’s that were thinner than Barry had previously assumed they were.

Barry jumped when suddenly twin cries of triumphant were released, realizing he’d been staring at Cold for who know how long while the twins had worked to get their spider into the carrier. Trying to swallow, made difficult by how dry he suddenly found his mouth, Barry gave an awkward smile as he watched Len usher the twins out, after having them thank Barry for finding Prince Cupcake for them.

Snart paused after watching the kids’ race off, he flicked his gaze once more around Barry’s apartment before landing on the man himself who had walked over to shut the door once all his unexpected guests left.

“Looks like we’ll be seeing more of each other, Scarlet,” Len murmured, voice quiet, teasing but still mindful of the hallway behind him, “Being neighbors and all that.”

“We should talk over dinner,” Barry blurted out, his face rapidly turning a bright, fire engine red before he ducked his head and brought his left hand up to rub at the back of his neck. “I mean, we should, uh,” swallowing he lifted his gaze to look over at the older man. “We should do dinner sometime to talk about this. Our, uh, I mean the, uh, living situation and I feel like I should repay you for thinking someone was being murder earlier,” Barry babbled on.

Barry watched as Cold’s eyes narrowed for a moment, before his lips curved into a smirk, his gaze raking over Barry’s form once again, “How about you finish this up and we’ll go for a drink tonight?”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Holidays!!! I hope you guys enjoyed this!!!


End file.
